The Life of Spiders 



silken net (Fig. 567) and suspends it by a cord to the sides of 

 damp cliffs. 



An egg-sac which has interested me greatly is one that I 

 have found attached to the branches of shrubs and of trees. This 

 egg-sac (Fig. 204) is made within a rolled leaf, the petiole of which 

 is securely fastened to the twig by a band of silk, so that it is 

 held in place through the winter. This egg-sac resembles in 

 miniature the cocoon of the Promethea moth. 1 have been unable 

 to determine what spider makes it. 



The maternal duties of the spiders whose egg-sacs are re- 

 ferred to in the preceding paragraphs end with the making and 

 fastening in place of the egg-sac. The spider dies soon after 



this labour is per- 

 formed, and the 

 spiderlings when 

 they hatch must 

 shift for them- 

 selves. But with 

 certain other spi- 

 ders this is not 

 the case. 



In some species 

 of the genus Dic- 

 tyna, the female 

 makes her egg-sac 

 within the web; 

 the young soon 

 hatch; and mother and young live together for a considerable 

 period within the same web. Here the young are protected 

 from attack by the presence of the mother; and are saved the 

 necessity of making a web to catch their prey. 



More remarkable than this are the evidences of maternal 

 care exhibited by the nursery-web weavers, Pisauridae. These 

 spiders spin no web for catching insects but stalk their prey. 

 After the egg-sac is made the female carries it with her, under 

 her body wherever she goes (Fig. 683). When the spiderlings are 

 about to emerge from the egg-sac, the mother takes it to the top 

 of some herb or to the tip of a shrub, and fastens it in the centre 

 of a nursery made by spinning a web over the leaves. She then 

 posts herself as a guard on the outside of the nursery (Fig. 684). 



Fig. 203. EGG-SACS OF TETRAGNATHA 



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